Elder lifted away the glass.
Anton appeared for a moment at the door, then, reassured, went away again.
'But my guess,' she said, 'it's George Mallory you're more interested in. More than Ben. Am I right?'
'Maybe.'
'Georgie-Porgie, kissed the girls and made them cry. He did that, all right. And now he's running scared, isn't he? Not that he'd ever admit it, of course. He could be standing in the middle of a fire, flames up to his armpits, and swear blind everything was hunky-dory. But he sent that creep Repton round, didn't he? A sure sign. Maurice Repton smarming up to you in one of those neat little suits he likes to tell you are custom-made by some tame tailor out at Winchmore Hill, used to be a cutter in Savile Row.'
'Maurice with all those questions. Anyone been to see me, sniffing round. CIB or whatever they're called nowadays. Change their fucking names as often as a whore's knickers. No, I says. Number of visitors I get these days, anyone'd think I've got the fucking plague. HIV. If anyone does, Maurice says, you will give us a call? Let us know. Us, like they're husband and fucking wife.'
She paused, collecting her breath. Ash fell from the end of her cigarette.
'Course, like I told him, no one ever came near. Till you.'
Elder took what remained of the cigarette from between her fingers and replaced it with the glass of champagne.
'Should I tell them about you, Frank? Maurice and George. What do you think?'
'I think it's up to you.'
'We'll see, we'll see. See how you behave, what it is you want. What you want to know. What do you want to know, Frank?'
'What it is has got Mallory rattled, that would do for starters.'
She looked at him lopsidedly across the top of her glass. 'Wouldn't it, though? Just wouldn't it.'
After several moments' thought, Lynette swung her chair around and repositioned it close to the rear window.
'Bring that over, would you, Frank?'
'That' was a small rosewood table with an ashtray and a coaster for her glass, which Elder refilled before lighting her another cigarette. He carried across a curved-back wooden chair and set it down close by.
There was little sign they were a relatively short drive from the heart of London, a short walk down the hill to the tat and turmoil that was Lewisham. Or that visitors, on this fine January morning, would be strolling across Greenwich Park to the Observatory, then down the sloping paths towards the Maritime Museum and the Cutty Sark.
Out in the garden nothing moved. The faint shadows of bushes, cast by the winter sun, seemed to have been painted, soft grey, upon the grass.
Lynette coughed before she spoke. 'I had a card from Ben a few days back, Cyprus. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, to be exact. Sort of New Year's card, I suppose. He did have a place in Paphos, down in the south. Had it for years. Went there every winter, didn't we, for a while. Ben and me. A few others, sometimes. Friends. George and Maurice, for instance, they came out a few times, early on.'
She released a slow stream of smoke towards the glass.
'Got too busy, Paphos, too many tourists. Too many fucking expats. That was why Ben sold up, moved across the island. Kyrenia. Lovely spot. And besides, no extradition is there? Turkish Republic' She laughed, a short breathless sound. 'What they gonna do, send in the fucking SAS, drag him out?'
Elder turned the stem of the glass between his fingers. How far to let her take her own time, go where her own mind took her? When to push?
'Why aren't you there with him?' he said, gently as he could.
Another laugh that she washed down with a shaky gulp of champagne. 'Me? Why doesn't he want me? What sort of a stupid fucking question is that? What the earthly fuck would he want me for? Like this?'
'He obviously cares for you.'
'He what?'
'You said yourself, someone to look after you, the champagne.'
'And you think that's because he fucking cares?'
'Why else?'
She grasped his arm, just above the wrist. 'To keep me fucking quiet, that's why. Buy my fucking silence. Buy me off.' Elder thought she would let go, but she tightened her grip instead. 'We had it planned, didn't we, Ben and me? Agreed. More or less from the first. All the time I was with George, even, that never changed a thing. We were going to go off there one winter, Cyprus, and never come back. Retire. Enjoy the rest of our lives in the sun. Look, over there. Above the fireplace.'
The photograph was in a filigreed silver frame. A younger, almost beautiful Lynette Drury – striking, certainly – lit up by the sun; beside her, a handsome, dark-haired man with a strong, almost aquiline nose and dark eyes that stared out while the rest of his face attempted a smile.
'That's what it was going to be,' Lynette said, 'the rest of our fucking lives. And no matter how… how filthy it all became, that was what I clung on to. The rest of my life in the fucking sun.'
Her nails were digging deep into Elder's arm, close to breaking the skin.
'Well, I'm not, am I? Not going fuckin' anywhere. I'm going to die here in this place with just a poof for company while him and Mallory are out there living the life of fucking Riley after all… after all the…'
A fresh fit of coughing doubled her forward and Elder prised her hand from his arm, then patted and rubbed her back, low below the shoulder blades. He thought Anton might reappear, but there was no sign; perhaps he was content to listen outside the door.
'Ben and I, we were living together. Not married, not official, but it had been a long time. I was running this place in Streatham, girls, you know, young, some of them, almost as young as they looked. That was when I met George Mallory. One of the girls, she had a bit of trouble with this punter. Went for him with a knife. Panicked. Next thing you knew, emergency services everywhere. Ambulance. Police. George was there. Promising to make it all go away. And he did. Only there's payback. Wants me to be his snout, doesn't he? No way, I tell him, I'm not turning Ben in, not for anyone, but he says no, that's not what he means. Play this right, and we all stand to gain. Your Ben, he knows what's going on, got his nose in the trough. Have a word with him, see what he says. So I do, and Ben says fine.
'Couple of months later there's this robbery, Hatton Garden. Diamonds. Big reward. Ben knows who took it down. He tells me, I tell George, they're caught cold, most of the stuff recovered. The Yard only passes on five grand to me, right? Reward money for giving the information leading to the arrest. George and me, we split it down the middle. Lovely. Six months later, more of the same. Next thing I know he's coming on to me. Wants to set me up in a flat somewhere. I told Ben, thinking he'll tell him to fuck right off, but instead he says, yes, why not? Not going to do us any harm, is it, you and me having someone like Mallory in our pockets?'
She stared out of the window, sipped more champagne.
'That's how it was, for years. Favours going back and forth. Little celebrations. Parties. Pop singers and second-rate movie stars. Yanks, some of them. Hollywood, you know. Rubbing up against real villains, loved that, didn't they? LSD, horse, cocaine. Boys and girls, all hand-picked, paid for. And George, he was in the thick of it, wasn't he? Lapping it up. Girls, especially; he liked girls, did George. Two or three at a time. Young girls. Not, you know, really young, he's not some bleeding paedophile. That kind of thing I won't go near it, won't touch it, makes my skin crawl, but young, you know, fifteen, sixteen, not been around the block too many times. In the end it all went too far. You don't want to know how and I'm not telling you. Not ever.'
Elder was about to ask anyway, but Lynette didn't give him the chance.
'Things settled back down,' she said. 'Went on pretty much as before. Ben got hooked up with Will Grant and they pulled off a couple of tasty scores. Tasty himself, Will Grant, I'll say that for him.' She gave Elder what would once have been a coquettish glance. 'Once or twice the law got too close and George had to straighten things out, make them go away. Then, a few years back, there was this big falling-out after they done this job at Gatwick. Law comes sniffing round, as per usual, and someone's only dropped Grant right in it, name and number, and of course he thinks I've grassed him up. Reckons George has persuaded me to roll him over. It's not true, not for a bloody moment, but Grant's not having any, real paranoid by now, thinks they're both out to stiff him of his share of almost a million, Ben and George both. Won't be persuaded. No way to turn him round. Oh, when the case fell apart and
